Invasiveness of brain tumors is a major reason for poor prognosis after diagnosis. Unfortunately, there is a lack of available chemotherapeutic agents that negatively impact invasive gliomas. Additionally, gliomas present a difficult drug delivery paradigm due to the difficulty in transporting drugs across the blood-brain barrier.
Malignant glioma, also known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is a highly infiltrative form of brain tumor with a five-year survival rate of 2%, characterized by diffuse cell spread within the tumor and into the surrounding brain creating an ill-defined tumor border. Primary treatment options for include surgical final IB concentration of 7-8 mg/ml resection, radiation, and chemotherapy. The rate of recurrence is high, and the average survival time post resection surgery is 18 months.
Novel therapeutics against cancer include more specific agents to attributes of tumor behavior including anti-angiogenics, antihypoxics, and anti-invasives. Several anti-invasive agents have shown promise in vitro for stopping tumor invasion and metastasis. These agents have not been tested in vivo due to limitations in delivery and dose accumulation at distant tumor sites.
It would be advantageous to provide new drugs and drug delivery systems to target glioma invasion in vivo. The present invention provides such compositions, and methods for their use.